La Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta 2016

Julien D’Hoore took victory in the La Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta today, as the inaugural Women’s WorldTour came to a close.

D’Hoore surged clear during the sprint to finish ahead of her Wiggle-High5 teammate Chloe Hoskins, with Marta Bastianelli (Ale Cipollini) rounding out the podium in third place.”

I’m really happy with this WorldTour win, Chloe and I were riding behind Boels-Dolmans who were doing a great lead-out. But then I lost Chloe’s wheel with 400 meters to go, got through a gap there and could find a space and then I took it from there,” D’Hoore said afterwards.

Meanwhile, Megan Guarnier (Boels Dolmans), who led the in the Women’s WorldTour rankings, finished safely in the peloton to secure her series title.

Race Highlights

A small breakaway group containing Anna Plichta (BTC City Ljubljana), Eri Monamine (Poitou-Charentes.Futuroscope.86), Natalie Van Gogh (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental Team), and Margarita Victoria Garcia (Bizkaia-Durango), came to form early on in today’s 87 kilometer race.

However, the breakaway group was eventually reined in by the peloton about half-way through the race.

From there, there were a number of brief attacks that followed, including one by Guarnier with 40 kilometers to go. But, no significant breakaways were made to stick, until Claudia Lichtenberg (Lotto Soudal) and Simona Frapporti (Hitec Products) went clear during the last 20 kilometers.

The duo managed to hold onto a 30 second gap heading into the final lap, but when the sprinters’ teams finally assembled at the front, their gap plummeted.

Indeed, both rider were swept up with 4 kilometers to go, as Boels Dolmans led out for the final kilometers, looking to set up Blaak.

But the Dutch team was forced to open up their sprint early, leaving Blaak with only a fourth place finish.